Telemovies have dominated Christmas movies for 50 years – so why are the Aussie straight-to-streaming ones this bad?

By Ari Mattes, Lecturer in Communications and Media, University of Notre Dame Australia

For some, December 25 is a solemn day, key on the Christian calendar, involving important traditions to be treated with reverence. But for many, Christmas is a time for unbridled fun: Santa, presents, and the random grump next door who suddenly decorates his house in an overwhelmingly delirious light display. For a month, we embrace with childlike delight things that for the rest of the year we would dismiss as kitsch, tacky, too bright, too shiny.

Christmas films reflect these differing approaches to the season. There are the solemn, wholesome type, the model for which is Frank Capra’s…

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